perfectly know how you look in black and in white, I have experienced the utmost you can do in colours; but all your movements, all your graceful steps, deserve not half the glory you might here attain, of a moving and easy behaviour in buckram: Something between fwimming and walking, free enough, and more modeftly-half-naked than you can appear any where else. You have conquer'd enough already by land; fhow your ambition, and vanquifh alfo by water. The buckram I mention is a dress particularly useful at this time, when, we are told, they are bringing over the fashion of German ruffs: You ought to use yourselves to fome degrees of stiffness beforehand; and when our ladies chins have been tickled a-while with ftarched muflin and wire, they may poffibly bear the brush of a German beard and whisker.

I could tell you a delightful ftory of Doctor P. but want room to display it in all its fhining circumftances. He had heard it was an excellent cure for love, to kifs the Aunt of the perfon beloved, who is generally of years and experience enough to damp the fierceft flame: he try'd this course in his paffion, and kiffed Mrs. E- at Mr. D-'s, but, he fays, it will not do, and that he loves you as much

as ever.

Your, &c.

LETTER VIII.

To the fame.

F afk how the waters
you

me,

agree with I must tell you, fo very well, that I question how you and I fhould agree if we were in a room by ourfelves. Mrs. has honeftly affured me, that but

for

for fome whims which fhe can't entirely conquer, fhe would go and fee the world with me in man's cloaths. Even you, Madam, I fancy (if you would not partake in our adventures) would wait our coming in at the evening with some impatience, and be well enough pleas'd to hear them by the fire-fide. That would be better than reading romances, unless lady M. would be our historian. What raises thefe defires in me, is an acquaintance I am beginning with my lady Sandwich, who has all the spirit of the last age, and all the gay experience of a pleafurable life. It were as fcandalous an omiffion to come to the Bath and not to see my lady Sandwich, as it had formerly been to have travelled to Rome without vifiting the Queen of Sweden. She is, in a word, the best thing this country has to boast of; and as she has been all that a woman of spirit could be, fo fhe ftill continues that eafy and independent creature that a fenfible woman always will be.

I must tell you a truth, which is not, however, much to my credit. I never thought so much of yourself and your fifter, as fince I have been fourfcore miles diftance from you. In the Foreft I look'd upon you as good neighbours, at London as pretty kind of women, but here as divinities, angels, goddeffes, or what you will. In the fame manner I never knew at what rate I valued your life, till you were upon the point of dying. If Mrs. — and you will but fall very fick every season, I fhall certainly die for you. Serioufly I value you both fo much, that I efteem others much the lefs for your fakes; you have robb'd me of the pleasure of esteeming a thousand pretty qualities in them, by showing me fo many finer in yourfelves. There are but two things in the world which could make you indifferent to me, which, I believe, you are not capable of, I mean ill-nature and malice. I have seen enough of you, not to overlook any frailty you could have,

and

and nothing less than a vice can make me like you lefs. I expect you should discover by my conduct towards you both, that this is true, and that therefore you fhould pardon a thousand things in me for that one difpofition. Expect nothing from me but truth and freedom, and I shall always be thought by you what I always am,

Your, &c.

I

LETTER IX,

To the fame.

1714.

Return'd home as flow and as contemplative after I had parted from you, as my Lord * retired from the Court and glory to his Country feat and wife, a week ago. I found here a difmal desponding letter from the fon of another great courtier who expects the fame fate, and who tells me the great ones of the earth will now take it very kindly of the mean ones, if they will favour them with a vifit by day-light. With what joy would they lay down all their schemes of glory, did they but know you have the generofity to drink their healths once a day, as foon as they are fallen? Thus the unhappy, by the fole merit of their misfortunes, become the care of Heaven and you. I intended to have put this laft into verfe, but in this age of ingratitude my best friends forfake me, I mean my rhymes.

I defire Mrs. P-to stay her stomach with these half hundred Plays, till I can procure her a Romance big enough to fatisfy her great foul with adventures. As for Novels, I fear fhe can depend upon none from me but that of my Life, which I am ftill, as I have been, contriving all poffible methods to fhorten, for the greater cafe both of the historian and the

reader.

reader. May the believe all the paffion and tenderness express'd in these Romances to be but a faint image of what I bear her, and may you (who read nothing) take the fame truth upon hearing it from me. You will both injure me very much, if you don't think me a truer friend, than ever any romantic lover, or any imitator of their style could be.

The days of beauty are as the days of greatness, and fo long all the world are your adorers. I am one of thofe unambitious people, who will love you forty years hence when your eyes begin to twinkle in a retirement, and without the vanity which every one now will take to be thought

Your, &c.

TH

LETTER X.

HE more I examine my own mind, the more romantic I find myself. Methinks it is a noble spirit of contradiction to Fate and Fortune, not to give up those that are snatched from us; but to follow them the more, the farther they are remov'd from the sense of it. Sure, Flattery never travelled fo far as three thousand miles; it is now only for Truth, which overtakes all things, to reach you at this diftance. 'Tis a generous piece of Popery, that pursues even those who are to be eternally abfent, into another world; whether you think it right or wrong, you'll own the very extravagance a fort of piety. I can't be fatisfied with ftrowing flowers over you, and barely honouring you as a thing loft: but muft confider you as a glorious tho' remote being, and be fending addreffes after you. You have carried away fo much of me, that what remains is daily languishing and dying over my acquaintance here, and, I believe, in three or four months more

I fhall

I fhall think Aurat Bazar * as good a place as Covent Garden. You may imagine this is raillery, but I am really fo far gone as to take pleasure in reveries of this kind. Let them fay I am romantic, fo is every one faid to be, that either admires a fine thing or does one. On my conscience, as the world goes, 'tis hardly worth any body's while to do one for the honour of it: Glory, the only pay of generous actions, is now as ill paid as other juft debts; and neither Mrs. Macfarland for immolating her lover, nor you, for conftancy to your lord, must ever hope to be compared to Lucretia or Portia.

I write this in fome anger; for having, fince you went, frequented thofe people moft, who seemed moft in your favour, I heard nothing that concerned you talked of fo often, as that you went away in a black full-bottom'd wig; which I did but affert to be a bob, and was anfwered, Love is blind. I am perfuaded your wig had never fuffered this criticism, but on the fcore of your head, and the two eyes that are in it.

Pray when you write to me, talk of yourself; there is nothing I fo much defire to hear of: talk a great deal of yourfelf; that she who I always thought talked beft, may speak upon the best subject. The fhrines and reliques you tell me of, no way engage my curiofity; I had ten times rather go on pilgrimage to fee one fuch face as yours, than both St. John Baptift's heads. I wifh (fince you are grown fo covetous of golden things) you had not only all the fine ftatues you talk of, but even the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar set up, provided you were to travel no farther than you could carry it.

The court of Vienna is very edifying. The ladies, with respect to their husbands, feem to underftand that text literally, that commands to bear one

At Conftantinople.

another's